A world in white

The Blackthorn Winter - when blackthorns reach the peak of their blossoming and hedges and scrub look like they are loaded with snow - usually happens at the end of March, but because of the colder weather, it is happening in mid-April this year. In fact blackthorn has been in flower for a couple of months at least, flowering in scattered dribs and drabs. Now that it is full on, bright white blossom shines in hedges next to ones which are beginning to brown off.

The wild cherry, on the other hand, all seem to have flowered in one glorious explosion of white. The most spectacular place to experience this is in the cherry grove of a steep valley wood. From a distance this splash of snowy white blossom stands out from the surrounding dark treetops and streaks like a badger's stripe down the rounded snout of woods to the stream. Inside the grove, looking up through swaying trunks to an early-morning blue sky - that will only last another hour before it starts raining again - the canopy is starred with white flowers. In the soft heft of a breeze, petals drift down to land in swathes of white wood anemone on the ground. This is the great white pulse of spring that will soon climax with wild garlic and hawthorn. In the hedgerows, the frothy white umbels of cow parsley are already in flower before the bluebells - a phenomenon used as an indication of climate change. A couple of days ago, as if to announce the white pulse, a ferocious shower of hail fell on Wenlock, filling streets and gardens with a thick white drift, for all the world like wild blossom from the sky.